Analyzing Obama’s disquiet speech, point by point

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Last week, President Barack Obama spoke at a fundraising event, which is an activity he’ll be repeating with frequency heading into the midterm elections.

But the speech he delivered to money men and women in Purchase, N.Y., on Friday was notable for how the president characterized the situation — with respect to the economy, world affairs and more. It was an assessment containing its share of positives, but it also drew some derision — and, notably, Obama deleted a passage that was widely mocked when he addressed donors in Rhode Island later that day.

Obama spoke initially about the state of the U.S. before he took office. “And when you think about what was happening then, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. The economy was actually contracting at a faster pace than had happened during the Great Depression. Today, we’ve now seen 53 straight months of job growth, over 10 million jobs created. Unemployment rate has come down faster this year than any time in the last 30 years.”

Obama: “The deficit has been cut by more than half. We have seen record corporate profits. The stock market has not just recovered but actually gone well beyond where we were pre-crisis.”

MarketWatch did a comprehensive story on how the stock market has surged during this presidency, looking at the effect of 2,000 days of Obama on the stock market. As of July, the Obama presidency ranked third, behind Bill Clinton and Franklin Roosevelt, in terms of stock gains.

Slide 4 of 10

Obama: “Our energy production here in America is higher than it’s ever been. For the first time in maybe 20 years, we actually produce more energy than we import. We’re producing twice as much clean energy as we were when I came into office, 10 times more solar energy, three times more wind energy — which partly accounts for why we reduced carbon emissions faster than any other advanced country in the world.”

Though the industry hotly debates how much White House policies have to do with it, the shale revolution has driven a big jump in domestic production, as shown here.

Slide 5 of 10

Obama: “Having said all that, a lot of people still feel anxious. And the question then is, why is it that if things have gotten better, why are people anxious? Why is there still disquiet across the country? Why is it that people feel cynical about the possibilities for the future?”

The data back this idea of disquiet. As of August, 71% in an NBC News/WSJ poll expressed a belief that the country was on the wrong track.

Slide 6 of 10

Obama: “[A]lthough the economy as a whole has done well, there are still too many folks who have been left behind. Those of us at the very top have done very well. But there are still a lot of people out there out of work; still a lot of people who, at the end of the month, are struggling to pay the bills; still a lot of families who work really hard every single day but can’t figure out how to pay for child care, or can’t imagine how they’re going to save for their kid’s college education, or have no idea how they’re going to retire. Corporate profits have gone up, stock market has gone up, but wages and incomes have barely budged not just in the last six years, but in the last 20 years.”

Charted here is median household income, dating back to 2000. Adjusted for inflation, the typical household has lost ground since the Great Recession — and the Obama presidency.

Slide 7 of 10

Obama: “And some of those efforts [in the education and health-care areas] are going to cost money. But the truth is, is that we’ve also got a whole bunch of corporate loopholes out there that could be closed, and a tax system that doesn’t work. And if all of us are doing our fair share, then all of us can do well, not just some of us.”

Shown above are what are called “tax extenders.” These are a combination of corporate and individual tax breaks that Congress has yet to sign into law. The point made here by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is that one of Obama’s pet peeves, corporate inversions, costs relatively little to the American taxpayer, but it’s also fair to note the White House objects to some of these tax-extender provisions as well.

Obama: “And the truth of the matter is, is that the world has always been messy. In part, we’re just noticing now because of social media and our capacity to see in intimate detail the hardships that people are going through. The good news is that American leadership has never been more necessary, and there’s really no competition out there for the ideas and the values that can create the sort of order that we need in this world.

This was widely mocked, and, at a second speech on Friday, the “social media” excuse was not included in the text of the remarks.

WOW. RT @markknoller Pres Obama said “The world’s always been messy … we’re just noticing now in part because of social media."

Obama: “Which brings me to the last reason that people are anxious, and that is that Washington doesn’t work. It’s hard to describe how unproductive this Congress is. Harry Truman campaigned against what was known — what he called the ‘do-nothing Congress.’ But compared to this Congress, that was a do-a-whole-lot Congress.”

Republicans point out that, while the number of bills passed is low, much of the legislation passed in the House of Representatives has simply died after being passed on to the Democrat-controlled Senate. Still, the president is certainly correct that the Congress has done historically little.

Slide 10 of 10

Obama: “Which brings me to the last reason that people are anxious, and that is that Washington doesn’t work. It’s hard to describe how unproductive this Congress is. Harry Truman campaigned against what was known — what he called the ‘do-nothing Congress.’ But compared to this Congress, that was a do-a-whole-lot Congress.”

Republicans point out that, while the number of bills passed is low, much of the legislation passed in the House of Representatives has simply died after being passed on to the Democrat-controlled Senate. Still, the president is certainly correct that the Congress has done historically little.

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